Day 15: “The Woods In Ithaca”

(Above, Hemlock Gorge, Ithaca) Here was the Day 15 prompt: "For today's prompt, I want you to take the title of a poem you especially like (by another poet) and change it. Then, with this new altered title, I want you to write a poem. An example would be to take William Carlos Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow" and change it to "The Red Volkswagon." Or take Frank O'Hara's "Why I Am Not a Painter" and change it to "Why I Am Not a Penguin." You get the idea, right? (Note: Your altered poem does NOT have to follow the same style as the original poet, though you can try if you wish.)" Read more at: April PAD Challenge: Day 15

“The Woods In Ithaca”

Kaya knew how to chart her trip, she traversed all beaten

Paths and journeyed beyond the boundary where the locals

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Said strange sounds came from unknown brooks where

Shadows rubbed shoulders with each other, and merged

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Into a gigantic darkness, unshaken, unseeing, still. Kaya

Followed a songbird’s trail, walked the path drawn by it

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Sweeping rainbow wings across a forgotten territory, beyond

The four humps of a camel’s body. She went where she indeed

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Heard the droning noise of the flat-bowl slowly grow quiet,

Wilt like mushrooms in the sun, fall as scattered debris

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Of an old crashed plane. ‘Neath the town weather rooster she

Saw women with hair colored pink, sipping bitter coffee

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Brewed in the square, men harrying with news that was old

Children doing the usual; nudge and fool each other, beg for

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Money from elders. All of them tin dolls in a dumb charade.

Kaya knew and saw ‘em all, but heard less din, a calm over her.

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The songbird flew on, led her to the camel’s eyes, recounted

All the tales it knew, of people, lives, pebble paths, lost loves.

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Giant shadows cracked their roofing at the song and let rays

In; incoherent sounds from unknown brooks became a babble

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Welcoming, happy. Clouds soared up inviting more light and

For the first time, Kaya saw all the humps together, a vision, in

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Falling daylight: four domes of a citadel, quaint and outdated, a

Blurry green no Google Earth could capture on that maple brown.

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Tree stumps truncated, eaten by oafish white ants roaming free

Post rains. And so much else rising from the forest lake, engulfing.

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The songbird’s voice, her feathers of story layers, told of imagi-

Nations of centuries of sensations, a native relic unnoticed that

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Winged past like whispers, like dreams, like sighs from catacombs

Dusty, dry riverbeds, long sandy stretches. Kaya’s was a trip to the

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Moist mulch in dawn, the camel’s eyes resting on the glacial soil

With the knowledge that woods and skies and touches would be

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Enriched, carved on its ancient forms of love and toil. On the bell

Towers, buildings, bars and homes. On its body, a form or a being

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Called Kaya, land or life. The moody rooster meanwhile woke up

To announce a new day, eyes abounding in the light of a story just told.

Original Poem: "The Woods In New Jersey" by Robert Hass

Images from the Internet (Ithaca woods; Taughannock Falls)